May 16, 2013

Ray Kurzweil, one of the leading scientists in the field of artificial intelligence, joined Google late last year. Kurzweil is perhaps the most prominent proponent of “hard AI,” which argues that it is possible to create consciousness in an artificial being. Add to this Google’s revelation that it is using techniques of deep learning to produce an artificial brain, and a subsequent hiring of the godfather of computer neural nets Geoffrey Hinton.

Now we add the Dwave quantum computer which can already accelerate the solution of machine learning algorithms that are useful to Google’s AI efforts.

* producing very compact, efficient recognizers
* improved handling of highly polluted [real world]training data
* the best results not with pure quantum computing, but by mixing quantum and classical computing
* 2000 and 8000 qubit systems coming in 2 years and 4 years that will speed up solving nearly all machine learning optimization problems in one second after they are formulated properly for the Dwave system

In a few years, Kurzweil will have the classical computer power of Google’s data centers and quantum computer power that could be beyond the power of all classical computers to drive his solution of greater than human intelligence artificial intelligence. [...]